Santa Screamer

He seemed so excited waiting in line, waving his arms and lunging toward Santa.  But, the second I set him in Santa's lap. . .

Mac and Cheese

Cleaning up after dinner with a baby hanging on your legs is the pits.  I usually can't even finish the dishes until after he's gone to bed.  But, last night, I was determined to get the dishes done before bedtime so that I could fold the laundry after (it's been piling up lately). Anyways, in my rush to clean the kitchen, I accidentally left the fridge open just a smidgen.  I left the room for a second to toss, yet another, dirty item into the laundry basket.  And, when I returned, literally moments later, I found this:

That's Gabe grabbing a second handful/mouthful of the previous night's leftover macaroni and cheese, after he had taken the lid off.  He loved this the other night when it was hot and fresh, and he loved it last night when it was freezing and probably a little stale.  I couldn't pull him away - it was too funny and too precious to watch him just getting himself a little snack.

Exercise Group

Some of you know that each morning I take Gabe to the "studio" at the recreation center.  He gets babysat for an hour while I go work out.  Tuesdays, I babysit.  Gabe has a "best friend" at exercise group named Kallen (pronounced Kay-Lin).  As soon as Kallen gets there every morning, Gabe freaks out.  He does this loud, excited squeal and then crawls really fast in circles until Kallen's mom sets him down. 

Kallen just turned 1, and so it's good for chubby Gabe to have a bigger kid to play with.  They grab each others' faces and take each others' toys and they fall over each other, but neither ever cries.  Their form of playing together means sucking on toys while sitting by each other. 

They are together for, literally, the whole hour.  If one crawls into the garbage can (see pictures below), the other follows suit.  If one stands up next to a ride-along car/truck, the other has to do it too.  In fact, at least once every day, Gabe and Kallen stand up to a car (one behind, and one on the side) and they walk with it, super-duper slowly, across the room.  The one on the side has to do the vine side-step to keep up and sometimes the car tips over, which sends the boys rolling onto the floor.  It is the funniest thing, and I've been meaning to take my camera for weeks.  Well, today, I remembered.  The pictures aren't great, but they demonstrate how the two love to be together.

P.S. Kallen has the CURLIEST hair I have ever seen.  It's so cute!

Christmas time in Kirksville

We put up our tree this last week.  We did have ornaments up at one time, but after Gabe broke one in his hand and tried to put the broken, sharp end in his mouth, the ornaments came down.  I thought he would be more interested in the tree, but I guess that once the danger was gone, the tree lost its excitement.

Gabe's friend Austin came over for a little bit last week.  Gabe was amazed that another kid was in our house playing with his stuff, and it was fun to watch them jibber-jabber back and forth.

Other than that, the three of us have been busy with the daily grind.  Phil studies, Gabe plays, and I have been making Christmas presents.  I bought my first glue-gun yesterday. Woohoo!  Gabe slid on it all around the house while it was still in its package. 

I keep trying to upload pictures, but something funny's up.

An Early Christmas

Thanksgiving came and went, but for a short update: we teamed up with with a couple other students for our feast.  We ate dinner at Mark and Stephanie's and were joined by their baby, Marissa, and another student, JD.  Good company, great food and fun games! Here's Phil with Gabe right before we ate:

Well, Christmas may still be a month away, but we have had our fair share of holiday fun here the past few days.  For starters, Phil "surprised" me (and by surprise, I mean I saw it on sale at the store, told him about it, and then we both returned to the store later to get it) with a brand new sewing machine! I don't really know what I was thinking, since anyone who has seen my sewing efforts or heard my bored sewing grumbles, knows that I've never took a fancy to the art.  So, we'll see how this pans out. The best part about this machine is that it is a "Project Runway" sewing machine.  Yep.  So, naturally, a few weeks with this baby and I'll be putting out my own fashion line. I stayed up really late the first couple nights and whipped out these:

Yep. That's Gabe just standing there.  And, yep, those are his first pair of skull pajamas.  The stitches aren't straight and I had to add extra fabric to the bottom because I cut them too short, but what can you expect from a non-sewer?  Anyways, Phil has decided that he wants a pair too.  And, that I should have one to match.

Gabe also got an early Christmas gift.  It came in the mail today, in a big box, from Phil's aunt, Jaclyn. 

A Little People Nativity Set!  It's so cute!  I put it together while Gabe was napping, and when I brought him out to the living room and set him before it, he just sat there staring, with his mouth wide open, drool pouring onto his chin. 

I think he's already sucked and slobbered on every single piece. Needless to say, he loves it!  Thanks Jaclyn!  And thanks Phil!

St. Louis in a Snap

For those of you who a) knew that the three of us spent the first part of this week in St. Louis and b) frequent this blog enough to care, here is a quick snapshot of our trip.  Unfortunately, there are few pictures since being the really prepared person I am, I forgot to take my camera charger with us. And, because it poured the first two days, the majority of our pictures took place in our motel room or while we were out to eat.

The Drive - We stopped at McDonald's for a bathroom break and Phil wanted fries.  So, Gabe got his first taste of Mickey D's.

 Gateway Arch - We got to the arch too late to ride the shuttle to the top and too late to get a picture when it was light. 

The Motel Room - Smelled pretty strongly of smoke, but it worked for us.  And, Gabe loved it!  He played on the bed, in the drawers, in the bathroom.  And, he pushed our cooler back and forth across the floor.

The Temple - Very pretty, right off of the freeway.  This is where I realized that my camera was dying, so I got very few pictures.

The Delmar Loop - A long street with fun, interesting shops down both sides.  I fell in love with one store - a children's store.  They had the cutest clothes, toys, bedding and other stuff for kids.  I tried to take some pictures of their boys clothes since it's very rare that you see a big collection of really, really cute clothes for boys.  We stopped to eat at the St. Louis Bread Company while we were shopping.

The Zoo - The St. Louis Zoo is a top-rated zoo, and it's completely free!  We had a lot of fun, although it was cold.  Gabe was interested in the animals for awhile, and then he fell asleep in his stroller, and snoozed the rest of the time we were there.  Here is the sole picture we got at the zoo before the camera died. :(

We loved our St. Louis trip!  It was great to get away and have Phil all to ourselves for the week! 

Laundry Boy

They're never to young to start learning about chores!  And, I've discovered that Gabe has a knack for laundry-doing.  He loves to help!  He stands at the dryer, I hand him each individual wet piece of clothing and he chucks it in.  And then, when I turn around to grab more clothes, he sticks his head in the dryer and starts pulling the clothes out. :)

Phil & Gabe say hi!

Hi!!  This is Philip.  Lacey has been wanting me to write on this blog about med school for a little while now, so here it is. 

Six days a week, I spend pretty much all day down at the school.  I really like how they have med school set up.  Every quarter is split up into four 3-week blocks, and we focus on a certain part of the body.  For example, during this last block, we studied the GI tract (the stomach, esophagus, & intestines) and their associated organs (liver, kidneys, spleen, gallbladder, and appendix).  In class, we studied the GI tract through different disciplines, including Gross Anatomy (identifying all the different parts of these organs, their arteries and veins, nerves, and some associated diseases), Histology (microscopic views of these body parts & associated cells), Physiology (how the body moves food along the GI tract and what it releases in response to food), and Biochemistry (how the body breaks down the food on a chemical basis).  As the year moves on, I'll start taking additional classes like pharmacology, microbiology, pathology, and others.  It is a really cool way to approach medicine.

                                                                        (wikipedia)

I'm in class between 2-4 hours a day, and then I spend the rest of the day doing other things.  Three times a week, I go to the Anatomy lab with two other students.  At the beginning of the year, the three of us were given a body.  He/she had donated his/her body to the med school.  Since mid-August, we have dissected out the back, arms and shoulders, chest and belly, and organs.  The smell takes some getting used to, but it is such a helpful and necessary way for a future doctor to learn about the body.  Twice a week, we'll go to the Histology lab and look at tissues under slides.  Also twice a week, we go and practice Manipulative Medicine.  So far, we have learned how to treat many dysfunctions and disorders of the spine and their associated muscles (like what you have, Dad). Throughout the weeks, we'll do additional things such as physician shadowing, practicing taking histories and treating actors from the community, getting CPR-certified, learning injection techniques, etc.  I'll spend the rest of the day studying, except for lunch and dinner with Lacey and sleeping.  Though it is difficult and very time-intensive, medical school has been an amazing experience!

                                                         (verydemotivational.com)

Now, I do know the main reason anyone goes to this blog:  to see and hear about Gabe.  :)  No problem, here it is:

Lacey is an amazing mother.  She is so good with Gabe, and they are so funny together.  Every once in a while, I am home for story time.  In particular, Gabe likes this Sesame street book.  If you push the buttons on the side, you can sing along with the provided lyrics.  The songs are commons ones, like Ring around the Rosie, but the lyrics are totally different.  They are usually about Elmo playing with someone. So, I'll be sitting at my desk in the living room studying, and I'll hear them with this book.  Lacey, being the awesome mother that she is, starts singing in a cowboy voice with Gabe in her lap.  She'll belt out this song, often times missing a lot of notes, but Gabe is loving it.  Sometimes he is as quiet as a mouse, other times he is slapping the book, trying to turn the pages, or cooing.  Gabe loves it when his mother reads to him, and if you get the chance when we are back in Utah, see if you can listen to Gabe & Lacey singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bug.

That's all, thanks for reading the blog, and love ya'll.

Finals, Finally!

Finals in med school are not like finals anywhere else.  You study your pants off for two weeks straight, breaking only to eat, sleep or change your contacts to glasses.  No mercy.  And then, the tests are the hardest yet! And the longest!

Luckily, the finals finished yesterday at 3:30, and since then, Phil has been detoxing.  He didn't think he would go through withdrawals, but he keeps saying, "I'm bored. I feel like I should be doing something."  He watched ESPN for awhile, but even that couldn't hold his attention for too long! Gabe enjoyed it though.

Tonight, we celebrated by going to Colton's Steakhouse.  It's a Texas Roadhouse-esque, peanut shells-on-the-floor type of establishment.  I had a gift card and we thought it would be a good time to use it.  It was pretty good.  Phil liked his steak and his fried okra (which he hasn't had since the mission), but my salad was only so-so.  Gabe loved it!  I swear, he ate half of the mozzarella sticks himself!  And, there was a little girl sitting behind him who kept stealing his attention away.

Anyways, it's good to have Phil all to ourselves for the next week!

G'Day Mate!

Here's Gabe in his souvenir PJs and kangaroo backpack that he got from his Grandma and Grandpa Ross, who just returned from an adventure to New Zealand and the Down Under.  Gabe had his own adventure in his new gear. 

He got pretty tired pretty quick, so he abandoned his heavy pack and went to bed. Thanks Grandma & Grandpa!

Yesterday, Gabe accomplished another "first": he did his first handstand!  Yep, a straight upside-down body, fully supported by his little arms.  He suspended for a minute in the air and then settled down into the standard headstand (also a first), from which he toppled onto the floor.  And cried.  Would you like to see the process leading up to the first handstand/headstand?  Thought so.

So, it was time for me to take the chicken out of the crockpot, shred it, and then return it to finish cooking.  And, I knew that it was going to take some heavy brain power to come up with an activity to keep Gabe busy enough for long enough for me to do it without him hanging on my legs and getting stepped on.  Light Bulb!  I pulled down the dishwasher door, removed the freshly cleaned sharp knives and let Gabe do his business.  Side note: if Gabe is in the other room and I open up the dishwasher to get something or to put something in, he recognizes the sound and books it into the kitchen to have a shot at playing with all the dishes.  Anyway, I stood right next to the dishwasher as I shredded and could see Gabe, rolling the bottom tray back and forth and grabbing forks and measuring spoon and banging them on the dishwasher door, out of the corner of my eye the whole time. 

I finally got the chicken back in the crockpot and looked down to find Gabe sitting on top of the dishwasher door!  I have no idea how he climbed up there as climbing was still not in his repertoire.  But, he was having the time of his life just playing with the dishes up close and personal. I ran to get my camera.

Here he is trying to lick the already clean plates clean.

And then, he decided it was time to come down, differently, of course, than how he climbed on. Here is the first step of his dismount.  There are no more pictures of the process because I was so curious as to how he was going to make it work that I quit snapping.

He reached over the edge of the dishwasher until both hands were touching the floor.  And then, he shimmied his body, while both grunting and screaming in frustration, until the weight of his body fell completely on his arms.  Like I said before, he was straight up for a little, until his arms gave out, and then his head took over. 

It looks like Gabe may be the next gymnast in the family.  Watch out Uncle Ryker!